Numbers 3:13
because truly all the firstborn males belong to me. That is because on the day that I killed all the firstborn sons of the people of Egypt, I spared all the firstborn sons of the Israelis and set them apart for myself. I also set apart the firstborn males of your domestic animals. They belong to me, Yahweh.”
Translation for Translators
In The King James Version
In Context
14Yahweh spoke to Moses/me again in the Sinai Desert. He said,
Cross References
Exodus 13:2“Set apart all the firstborn males in order that they may belong to me. The firstborn males of the Israeli people and of their animals will be mine.”
Exodus 13:15The king of Egypt stubbornly refused to let them leave his country, so Yahweh killed all the firstborn males in Egypt, both the boys and the firstborn of their livestock. That is why we now sacrifice to Yahweh all the firstborn of our livestock, but we buy back our own firstborn sons.’
Exodus 34:19Your firstborn sons and the firstborn male animals of your cattle and sheep and goats belong to me.
Numbers 3:41Also, set apart for me the descendants of Levi to be substitutes for the firstborn males of the other Israelis. And set apart for me the livestock of the descendants of Levi to be substitutes for the firstborn livestock of the other Israeli people.”
Numbers 18:6I myself have chosen the descendants of Levi from the other Israelis in order that they may be your special helpers. They are like a gift that I have given you to work at the Sacred Tent.
Numbers 33:4As they/we left, the people of Egypt were still burying the bodies of their firstborn sons. By killing them, Yahweh showed that the gods that the people of Egypt worshiped were false gods.
Matthew Henry on Numbers 3:2-14
The Separation of the Levites. ( b. c. 1490.) 1 These also are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the Lord spake with Moses in Mount Sinai. 2 And these are the names of the sons of Aaron; Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 3 These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests which were anointed, whom he consecrated to minister in the priest's office. 4 And Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord , when they offered strange fire before the Lord , in the wilderness of Sinai, and… Read the whole commentary →